I'm relieved Melbourne is no longer 'the world's most liveable city'

It's about time: those of us who live here, and who aren't involved in the marketing of Melbourne, know this metropolis of almost 5 million people is not the world's most liveable city. Far from it.

Vienna has claimed top spot.

On Tuesday, the announcement by the Economist Intelligence Unit that it had ranked Vienna the world’s most liveable city – overtaking Melbourne after seven consecutive years – came as a relief to those of us who follow urban affairs closely.

I've reported onmany of the past decade’s Economist Intelligence Unit liveability ranking releases. The first time we won, while the response from political leaders was little short of euphoric, the response from Age readers was more of a "meh".

The self-congratulatory response last year from our then lord mayor, Robert Doyle, was predictable.

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“There will always be naysayers and whingers," Doyle declared rather pointedly in his media release, but a seventh consecutive year was a "world record", and "an amazing feat all Melburnians should be extremely proud of".

Premier Daniel Andrews was scarcely more subdued, with his media statement declaring the 2017 result "seventh heaven".

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While I don't remember much of the reaction from readers the first time Melbourne was named the planet's most liveable city, I remember last year’s reaction from Age readers vividly. The anger was palpable.

Hundreds of messages from readers poured in laying out why it was ridiculous to label this city the world's most liveable.

Particularly when at times Melbourne's roads and public transport barely function for those outside the inner ring. Tell a Doreen or Point Cook resident, trapped on arterial feeder roads morning and night, that this city is as good as it gets.

Or a resident of Rowville still waiting for a train, almost 50 years after a rail line to the suburb was first promised by a Victorian government.

From our congested roads in new suburbs to a lack of train lines to much of outer Melbourne, to the many dysfunctional high-rise apartment towers we have allowed to be built. Everyone had an example of why we weren't doing well.

While Melbourne topped The Economist's survey repeatedly, it performed more realistically in other polls.

Most recently, engineers Arcadis ranked Melbourne the 21st most expensive place on the globe to build new infrastructure. That sounds a bit more like it. As did their finding a few months earlier that Melbourne ranked 55th for sustainable transport.

Pru Sanderson, a former high-ranking Victorian government bureaucrat now working for Arcadis, said Melbourne was held back by its lack of a high-functioning metropolitan rail system.

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On Tuesday morning, with The Economist’s results just out and Melbourne knocked off the top perch, ABC host and former Age journalist Virginia Trioli interviewed Canadian planner Brent Toderian.

He was Vancouver's chief planner when, in 2011, Melbourne took the title off the Canadian city.

What did losing the title mean for Vancouver? Absolutely nothing, Toderian said – other than in one important way.

“What you can do is use it as a conversation starter about what real liveability means and what struggles Melbourne really is having."

Which is why I'm relieved we've lost the title.

We no longer have to, each year, hear politicians like Doyle or Tourism Minister John Eren "crow", as Toderian put it, about winning a largely meaningless title.

Meanwhile, successive Victoria governments have allowed Melbourne to sprawl further and further outwards – surely a challenge to any supposed liveability if we are relying only on bigger and bigger roads for transport.

In recent times, the Andrews government has started construction of a cross-city rail tunnel, for which it should rightfully be praised.

But it has simultaneously poured incredible amounts of funding into the West Gate Tunnel, a toll road that will help Melbourne only a little and its backer, Transurban, a huge amount. And it is promising to spend an eye-watering $16 billion on another road through the city's north-east.

Meanwhile, Opposition Leader Matthew Guy is going one better, wanting to add a third toll road, the East West Link.

Of course, losing the title is not completely without impact. Former state MP Phil Honeywood now runs the International Education Association of Australia and on Tuesday he said it would make marketing Melbourne to overseas students slightly more difficult. Particularly nationalities among whom The Economist’s brand was strong and a No. 1 ranking had meaning.

But even there, with the top ranking going to Vienna, a non-English speaking city, the fall would make little real difference. “Moving from No. 1 to No. 2 is not going to have much of an effect,” Honeywood said.

Vancouver’s Brent Toderian, who has made regular trips to Melbourne, nailed it when he told the ABC that Melbourne really didn't have much work to do on its inner city – gifted by previous generations to our current crop of politicians.

"Melbourne's reputation is sort of resting on the laurels of the success of its inner city – it has a world-class downtown,” said Toderian.

“But the suburbs are pretty much normal; no worse and no better than most Australian or North American cities, and you can't be one of the most liveable cities in the world if you don't have the most liveable suburbs, because that’s where most of the people actually live."